suddenly put into his hands; its contents were
as follows:--

LUCILLA'S LETTER.

"Thy last letter, my love, was so short and hurried, that it has not
cost me my usual pains to learn it by heart; nor (shall I tell the
truth?) have I been so eager as I once was to commit all thy words to my
memory. Why, I know not, and will guess not,--but there is something ill
thy letters since we parted that chills me;--they throw back my heart
upon itself. I tear open the seal with so much eagerness--thou wouldst
smile if thou couldst see me, and when I discover how few are the words
upon which I am to live for many days, I feel sick and disappointed, and
lay down the letter. Then I chide myself and say, 'At least these few
words will be kind!'--and I spell them one by one, not to hurry over my
only solace. Alas! before I arrive at the end, I am blinded by my
tears; my love for thee, so bounding and full of life, seems frozen and
arrested at every line. And then I lie down for very weariness, and wish
to die. O God, if the time has come which I have always dreaded--if thou
shouldst no longer love me!--And how reasonable this fear is! For what
am I to thee? How often dost thou complain that I can understand thee
not--how often dost thou imply that there is much of thy nature which I
am incapable-- unworthy--to learn! If this be so, how natural is it to
dread that thou wilt find others whom thou wilt fancy more congenial to
thee, and that absence will only remind thee more of my imperfections!

"And yet I think that I have read thee to the letter; I think that
my love, which is always following thee, always watching thee, always
conjecturing thy wishes, must have penetrated into every secret of thy
heart: only I want words to express what I feel, and thou layest the
blame upon the want of feeling! I know how untutored, how ignorant,
I must seem to thee; and sometimes--and lately very often--I reproach
myself that I have not more diligently sought to make myself a worthier
companion to thee. I think if I had the same means as others; I should
acquire the same facility of expressing my thoughts; and my thoughts
thou couldst never blame, for I know that they are full of a love to
thee which--no--not the wisest--the most brilliant--whom thou mayest
see could equal even in imagination. But I have sought to mend this
deficiency since we parted; and I have looked into all the books thou
hast loved to read, and I fancy that I have imbibed now